Support Triffic On Facebook

Those who forget history are bound to repeat it…but we sort of tried to ignore it, so does it count or not?

As I write this, I am seething at a whole year’s hard work undone by one result. Whichever result it is, argue amongst yourselves as I haven’t got the energy to argue after Sunday’s events in the local pub. My guess is the Liverpool away game Spurs had control of until they stupidly backpassed (practically into their own net). If they had won that one as the complexion of the game suggested, I wouldn’t be worrying about this afternoon so much.
This season has been a white hot pain in the…well, you get the picture.

Have Spurs improved at all? – Yes AND No. Impartiality is my speciality…

NO:

Case and point – Spurs failed to finish above Arsenal’. A syndrome which has been enraging the blue and white half of North London for 18 years. Gets straight to the point doesn’t it. League position has reached a glass ceiling with Arsenal’s large…erm…a**e sitting on top of it for those 18 years. Not an improvement. Hence why any Spurs fan saying ‘Mind the Gap’ halfway through a season should be banned from wherever they uttered it. Two years in a row, Spurs fans including the level-headed amongst us have been made to look even sillier as a fanbase by counting chickens before they hatch. There has been no gap and if there was, Arsenal were the ones ahead by that gap.

For anyone sharpening a knife for anyone at the club, manager or player [or chairman], put it away. It’s not worth it and won’t turn back the clock. But if it mattered, I would blame one or two players for either letting a game slip away against Liverpool when we were up 2-1 or one who didn’t start scoring until it was too late. I could even attribute the lack of goals to not getting in a top striker but at the end of the day, it was about the players already on the pitch rather than the dream-inducing potential signings several hundred miles away from it. There have once again been games where Spurs have been in total control and still thrown away by the final whistle, and to opposition which weren’t exactly challenging Lloris until the one single counter attack gets lucky.

For two seasons in a row, Wigan have beaten Spurs 1-0 at home despite taking what is known in the UK as ‘a battering’. Although, it must be said Wigan are better than they used to be and it is a shame to see them go down to the Championship after the highs of winning a cup against all odds. I think their secret was Martinez – before each game against Spurs – playing them the 9-1 hammering they received at White Hart Lane on DVD to fire them all up.
The improvement has not been in the form of killing off games against less-favourited opposition.
Arsenal usually kill games off against the same opposition. The mentality issue still needs to be knocked out of this team a bit more before they can make a beneficial points gap and maintain it for the whole season, rather than let it slip two months before the end.

YES:

Spurs still gave it their best overall. They ended on their highest ever Premier League points tally and in Andre Villas Boas’ first season as manager, it’s at the least a sign that he knew what he was doing all along and should NEVER have been doubted. He didn’t deserve to be bombarded with reminders that his time at the managerial abbatoir known as Chelsea was not the best.
AVB has managed to get some kind of never-say-die mentality into the team and he has made more intelligent subs than duff ones to impact the game. The never-say-die mentality improvement came to fruition for me when Bale nicked a vital winner away to West Ham to make it 3-2 to Spurs in the dying seconds. Hugs all round for AVB and Bale who shared a man-love moment together.
Some games two years ago we would have lost 1-0 late on if the opposition played a defensive game we have managed to win 1-0 instead after peppering the goal with shots.
Some of the football under his tactics and Steffen Freund’s system of ‘ARBEIT-ing’ has been nothing short of amazing to watch. The 4-0 win against Aston Villa on Boxing Day was just out of this world and the sign of a team who deserved better prizes at the end than they got for it.
A sense of team spirit and willingness from the players to take on AVB’s philosophy was vital to improvement. Chelsea didn’t ‘play ball’ and it showed. Spurs took straight to AVB’s methods and it showed.
Tie in a fourth-place finish, an away win against Man United (after nearly 20 years!) and you have what was on its own – a better-than-decent season. It’s a shame that today’s events have mutated it, making it look more terrible than it is. *Takes rose-tinted spectacles off to prevent eye-strain*

Generally, I think Spurs have improved because of the players being willing to take on the methods of a manager who won a treble in his first season at a previous club. You don’t win a treble by doing nothing with a team. I’m an AVB-liever and have been since he got here.
Removing all the fluff about trying to finish above those pesky red guys from down the road is all we as fans can do to numb this pain. Supporting the ‘English contingent’ in the Champions League regardless is a whole separate ball game, but I don’t tend to play that. As it really would be nothing but a play (false). Club rivalry conquers all. You only have to look at Yesterday for that. Until next season, Auf Wiedersehen.

16 Responses to “Has There Been Any Real Improvement Then…?”

Spurs are a well run outfit, gradually improving, but to become a real power again they need to build the new stadium, with the minimum of expensive debt to repay. If they can do that, they could recover the stature they once had, and be able to retain their best players, as they once did.

One thing’s beyond dispute; Gareth Bale has improved beyond recognition and most of the credit for that goes to avb. Bale’s relationship with avb is the main reason I think he’ll stay with us for at least one more season. However without the welsh wizard we would have been mid-table at best…..
Have the team improved from last season, well no not really because last season they finished 4th. However they’ve got a record points tally so yes, maybe they have after all, but that points tally is mostly attributable to 1 player, so no the TEAM hasn’t really improved, but it’s on the right track, is showing far more grit and determination and has a coach that can take it to the next level; a team on the up and not stagnating like some not far away.
We’re now beating the top teams or getting gritty away draws, but still not always beating the weaker teams, and those we do its usually by just the odd goal (nearly always by Bale – noticing a trend here?). Aston Villa was a poor example (chelsea won 8-0) as they were particularly poor defensively at the time and that result was the exception.
For me the culprit has to be the chairman and the board for the basic lack of support they’ve afforded avb in strengthening the squad when it most needed it. It’s obvious to most that another couple of astute signings (such as those made by liverpool and even lowly qpr in january would almost certainly have got us to our goal (goal or lack of them aside from Bale being the problem). Spurs fans who said we weren’t a “1 man team” after poking fun at arsenal last season were hypocrites.
Perhaps it didn’t even need to go to january if levy had got avb the players he wanted last summer, or even if he’d got the team together pre-season instead of on deadline day and consequently giving away 7 points against lowly newcastle, wba and norwich. That’s where the champions league was really lost NOT at liverpool. We sell modric and vdv amongst other quality players and replace them with mediocre to goodish on the right day players from fulham and swansea? Yeah that shows real desire doesn’t it? Holtby is a talent for the future and was never going to seal the push for CL. Apparently ade has been nursing a niggling injury most of the season until recently which has been reflected in an improvement in form just recently, levy must have been aware of this in january?
Levy’s silly transfer policy has cost us big-time. In fact I can now imagine arsenal fans saying “in levy we trust”. For god’s sake levy and you faceless guys behind the scenes “avb can do it for us so SUPPORT HIM”.
If we keep Bale we can still attract the big names, I think playing alongside him is a bigger attraction than playing for another N London mob whose sole ambition is to finish in the top 4 with no hope in hell of actually winning the champions league. I mean it comes to something when you see a once GREAT team reduced to celebrating like chelsea winning the europa league for just finishing 4th! There was a time not too long ago when arsenal would have been linked with Bale. Now he’s choosing us because he knows with the right backing at the right time our star is rising.

100% agree the Liverpool game was the point where it began to unravel.saying that l really became worried watching the Basel game our lack of a plan B in the event of Bale not scoring was frightening, we seem to play the ball around at the back so much the opposition is twiddling their thumbs waiting for us and then we wonder why they are so hard to break down.Playing to Bales strengths is fine but what if hes injured or off form ? However great he is if we just rely on him we’re going nowhere. Still COYS.

I would just like to remind people that chelski won the cl by not playing football arseole only ever won things by hoofing the ball to wrighty and now they are playing some spurs like football what have they won . We have improved to lose ratface vdv and the king still play some very good football and still finish in Europe all be it the Europa . I will still be 100% supporting the spurs always in my heart we are family and family support each other COYS

AVB has done a marvellous job seeing as the squad was decimated by players not being replaced(Levy) injuries and players sent on loan and all in all it’s been a good season Bale has improved immensely Dembele’s starting to show he’s world class,Walker,Verts,Daws,Siggs have all done ok plus we now have a class keeper in Lloris,our under 21s and young players are the envy of the world and should be used in Europa next season “The Boas Babes” with a new stadium due Levy just needs to learn from he’s mistakes and buy a few decent players to make us Champions league regulars until “The Boas Babes” are ready to take us to glory and we become the Man Utd of the new decade and dominate England and Europe like Liverpool in the 80s. The future is bright,it’s lillywhite!

Spurs have had a generally good season having finished with a higher total than lastseason with just one point behind Arsenal. Nevertheless, I feel we lost our chances for a fourth, third or even second position simply because we did not win the decisive games and we lost to teams that we shouldhave beaten especially on our home ground. We have to make still greater effort next year right from the beginning and try to be more consistent.